Giuliani’s Twitter Conspiracy – idiocy & ignorance or incitement

We could also title this: The journey from America's Mayor to spittle-dripping, frothy-mouthed, ignorant conspiracy-theory uttering village idiot.

Or, perhaps just a planned liar.

Giuliani's Tweet

Back on Nov 30th, Rudy Giuliani tweeted (an untruthful one at that) about the Mueller investigation and Trump leaving for the G-20 summit. Inadvertently, he did not include a space between "G-20." and the first word of the next sentence, "In"

Twitter converts "word.word" as a hyperlink. It has done this for years.

I'm posting the picture of the original tweet and Giuliani's response. I believe it will, eventually, be deleted. I hope, for his sake, it is. It's embarrassing.

Below is a link to his tweet and response. The comments on twitter are amazing & hilarious!

RE: TWITTER LINKS

I've inadvertently created links to nowhere in the same way. Typos happen.

In this case, a web designer saw an opportunity. The ".in" suffix is a country domain - India. This designer purchased the domain for a few dollars and posted a single, very basic, webpage that said, "Donald J. Trump is a Traitor to our country." You can see that website here.

Any web designer/web savvy professional could have done the same in about 10 minutes. This is hardly a challenge - nor does it require coordination. You do not need to work with Twitter or anyone else.

I suspect the guy's site hardly saw any traffic. This was a mostly private nerd joke for his own edification and the few people who read the tweet and clicked on the link.

However, on December 4th, Giuliani doubled-down, indicating that Twitter allowed someone to "invade" his tweet (see image above). He further went on to indicate that when he had done the same with another inadvertent link, it didn't happen. This is his "proof" of conspiracy. Note: The other tweet he references: He did this with the word "either" - as in "word.either" ".either" is not a domain name you can currently register.

Is this a case of ignorance squared. 😉

For those who understand the basics of technology and Twitter, we all know this is completely false and asinine. Tweets are not "invaded" - "Invasion" seems to be a key trigger word for the Administration these days - but I digress.

That he tweeted his response four days after the original tweet is curious. He could have deleted the original tweet once the mistake was known. Most Twitter users know that you cannot edit tweets, you must delete and repost if you want to change the message.

What makes this even more hilarious and interesting is that Giuliani was originally tapped as Trump's Cyber Security Chief. Let that sink in.

True - he may not understand the nuances of Twitter. That is forgivable. However, it's been 4 days. Is there no one on his staff - some 20-something tech-relevant intern - who thought to explain this to him?

TECHNICAL IGNORANCE IS NOT A CRIME!

But, here is the harsh reality.

Either, Giuliani is ignorant and foolish about technology. That's not a crime - really, it isn't. I mean, I've bemoaned before that congress has something a small handful of technologists (tech entrepreneurs) as members, hundreds of lawyers, several farmers and doctors, etc. They are, as a group, woefully ill-prepared to direct economic and digital policy for the world we live in.

This is true of Democrats and Republicans!

Just remember the questions being leveled at Zuckerberg from congress. It was a bad comedy skit. More of an exposé on how little the people leading our country understand about technology. Truly cringe-worthy stuff.

But, again, Giuliani was tapped for the most critical technology role in the country. Ignorant - at best. And mind you, I know I'll get the hard-core Trumpite who feels it necessary to defend this... Save it, there is no defense.

I had the exact same assessment of Hillary Clinton prior to the election in regard to the email server issue. Either a) she was incompetent or b) criminally negligent. I knew it was not jail-worthy- but that was my assessment of her and that situation. She was the Secretary of State - knowledge of technology, directly or on her staff, is a necessity in this day and age.

THE EITHER/OR DILEMMA

But there is another take on this. It is sadly, more insidious.

He might, after realizing this gaff, have come up with a strategy after 4 days.

It could be that the conspiracy theory idea - while, of course, ignorant - is a calculated message he knows will resonate with many Trump followers.

It could be that Giuliani, like Trump, has so little respect for the intellect and knowledge of a large part of the Republican base, that he posted the message, fully-aware that unfounded conspiracy theories are all the rage for many Trump followers these days. He's willingly feeding the machine of ignorance.

Which leaves us the following either/or questions.

Ignorance: Is Giuliani an ignorant old-man who, similar to when my father had Alzheimer's, needs to have his car keys taken away? You can still love him - just please God, don't let him drive.

Or

Incitement: Is Giuliani a liar who has so little respect for the truth and so little respect for his Republican audience that he will lie to them to incite them?

I truly don't know. It's a real chin-tugger.

I'll leave the determination up to you. We'll see if the big G makes any attempt to accurately portray what happened. I'm not holding my breath.